It has nothing really amazing going for it though, lacking even Typhlosion's Eruption. What it does have is a 25% Stealth Rock hit and a weakness to Sucker Punch, Aqua Jet, and Pursuit. It will either be a pretty great NU Pokemon with it's solid stats or a terrible RU Pokemon with its weak stats and poor typing. For its sake, I hope NU.

22 Answers

8 votes

Stole this set off of some sucker on Frost, then "modified" it for my personal use. This is one of the most evil sets I've seen in 14 years of playing Pokemon. I use it on my mono fire team and it's brilliant. Anyway, here it is:

The plan is simple. Send Delphox out as a lead and use substitute. If the opponent attacks, then red card swaps them out. If they try to set up, then either substitute blocks them, or they boost up, making it hurt that much more when red card forces them out. So far so starightforward.
So the opponent's next poke is dragged out. This is where it gets interesting. Delphox uses will-o-wisp to burn them, and magician steals their item at the same time, crippling them in two ways at once, and boosting Delphox in the process (the item stolen is almost always leftovers). This is absolutely devastating against more physically oriented teams and tanks. With substitute and it's evs, it can burn half a team before being put down pretty easily. The last two slots ensure that Delphox isn't taunt bait and has a tool to use against Pokemon that can't be burned. Flamethrower is the prefered STAB for it's higher pp and accuracy over fire blast. the last move is filler. Psychic is a decent move to hit things of it's other STAB quite hard. If you anticipate things like Houndoom and Heatran then HP rock is the prefered hidden power, especially against things like Moltres.
It's Hp and very minor def and sp.def evs are enough to let it take hits behind subs pretty well, and take burned physical hits and special attacks comfortably. The Sp. atk evs give it a nice total Sp. atk stat of 300, enough to do good damage to anything that doesn't resist it's two attacking moves, while burn damage racks up (if staying in) or when pushed into a corner or cleaning a team of weakened mon. The timid nature and speed ivs are so that it will almost always get it's sub up before taking a hit, and firing off its magician will-o-wisps before the opposing Pokemon moves. It is vital.

Now, for the downsides. The primary one is that while Delphox can enter the field and sub up with great ease, and the burns and bulk can help it stay alive for quite a while being a hellish nuisance, the opponent is obviously going to be doing stuff too. First and foremost, the boost to infiltrator and sound moves, especially bug buzz, will allow several mon to derail this strategy quite a bit (recommend HP rock for Noivern, chandelure and Crobat, by the way).
Also, while boosting sweepers are no threat at all if Delphox gets it's sub up (and look downright silly when they hit a sub with a +6 earthquake and have to switch out) , entry hazards are more of a problem. A spinner is definitely recommended to get rid of any hazards set up after Delphox is done. This isn't a huge issue, though, as Delphox can bag the premium OU rocks users and spikers (skarmory, Forretress, Ferrothorn etc.) with a few well timed attacks and burns.
Finally, and most crucially, beware of what you're burning. Red card drags out a purely random mon. This means that Delphox could easily steal a choice band and cripple itself for the rest of the match, along with its opponent.
Also blah blah stealth rock blah.

Other useful possible moves on this set are wish, trick and mystical fire. use whatever you want.

So in short, what you have here is an excellent, surprisingly hard hitting, fast and downright sadistic Pokemon that offers great utility and opponent-crippling. BUT it does take skill to use at times. Use it well, and it can make your team mates jobs a whole lot easier.
This set really does work, though. I've been using it on my OU gen 6 mono fire team. It's been winning a lot since I started using this thing.

If this set actually worked I would use it. However, Red Card doesn't activate when your Pokémon is behind a Substitute. Along with that, using Will-O-Wisp doesn't activate Magician, I've tested it out myself.

This is brilliant and beautiful. I am competing in a mono-type tournament with my friends and have used and loved Fire since Red/Blue/Yellow days. I would really appreciate the chance to look at your mono-fire type team, Mechanism L, you are my hero on this board. Moustache power.

Sorry for all of the item options, but I wanted to show as many as possible. Heat rock is not preferred, but interesting. If you're lucky, 8 turns of destruction follow. If a choice item, use Switcheroo, and if LO, then Shadow ball.

Start off with WOW. Once the opponent is burned, wear them down with flamethrower over and over again. When needed, use rest. The Chesto Berry will wake you up the first time, and the next few times (should Delphox make it that far) use sleep talk and hope you get Flamethrower. If the opponent switches, WOW wouldn't be bad either.

Hypnosis/Toxic- To shut down threats or just, you know. I prefer Hypnosis because it helps me deal with Heatran, who always wrecks my team.

Mystical Fire- STAB and lower Special Attack.

Compared to what offensive Delphox does, defensive Delphox is superior. As you can tell, I actually use this in OU because it's a fire type with Wish not named Flareon, and it actually works pretty well.

It's rather simple. Cripple physical attackers with Will-O-Wisp, special attackers with Mystical Fire, repel Taunts and status with Magic Coat, and hit special walls not named Slowking with Psyshock. Annoying as heck to face,

Colbur Berry is run on this set because of the omnipresent Knock Off, and Magician provides some nice item-stealing. If you don't like this unpredictablity, run Blaze as the Ability and use Lefties.

4 SpA Delphox Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Cobalion: 206-246 (63.7 - 76.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
CM Cobalion is getting more and more common in RU, and this cripples him MASSIVELY. Sure, he can tank you, but how much damage can he do unboosted?

Shame that Delphox doesn't get a good hidden ability like Greninja does, but its got some pretty decent stats, and slightly better defences than Greninja.

Grass Knot & HP Grass depend on a few things, mainly just the tier Delphox is in. I don't think that Delphox will be higher than UU, and considering that Grass Knot is most effective in the higher tiers, especially Ubers because everything there is obese, HP Grass might be your better bet in order to deal consistent damage. I'm pretty sure HP Grass will OHKO Rhyperior anyway.

I think this thing is a unique special staller/sweeper.
Delphox 252 SAtk 100 Spd 100 SDef 52 HP
Item: Life Orb/Wise Glasses
Ability: Blaze
Nature: Timid
Mystical Fire can be OP with SAtk decrease, Wise Glasses, and STAB.
Protect I am just assuming it can learn like every other Pokemon. This can waste major PP.
Psychic is pure special stallerness.
Switcheroo is for destroying stat increases. Smell a Draco Meteor and don't do this.
I just wanted to provide a moveset for an X/Y Pokemon. It may not be the best, but it's pure ML.

Sub CM set. Substitute shields you from hits, while you set up Calm Minds, which aid your sweeping abilities. STAB Psychic for power and the ability to defeat physical walls who resist Fire Blast easier, or STAB Psyshock to defeat special walls more efficiently. Fire Blast is a powerful STAB move and gets pretty good coverage with your Psychic STAB. Since this guy will most likely be NU or RU, it's EVs give it just enough to outspeed + speed base 100's as well as the + speed monkey trio, which are basically the fastest relevant threats it has the ability to outspeed.

Because of this Pokemon's high special attack it's a must for powerful special attack moves that cover coverage and stab.

So this is my moveset:
-Mystical Fire/Flamethrower
-Shadow Ball/Grassknot
-Flamethrower/Fireblast
-Psyshock/Psychic
In my opinion this moveset works quite well. This is more of a offensive type of variation wit the choice scarf working well with that speed. Plus I recommend this starter as it has the highest stat points out of the three starters.

This set is quite good at annoying people, mostly as a result of water, ground, and rock types being destroyed by an unexpected one turn solarbeam, then Delphox gets a new item from the opponent, but if it does not like the item (say it is black sludge or something), it can switcheroo it to the next Pokemon that switches in!

Switcheroo- Give a special attacker the Choice Band while it is setting up
Mystical Fire- Deals damage and lowers Special Attack
Will-O-Wisp- Cripple a Physical attacker
Psyshock- For the special walls